Slartibartfast

-When you are strange, no one remembers your name-

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Vande.. Vande

Vande Mataram. Our National Song or is it a song to be sung just by hindus? I was under the impression that all Indians should have no problems singing the song. It is pretty appalling to associate a religious angle to our national song, a song that had been the spine of unification process during the freedom movement. A song sung by hindus, muslims, christians alike during the movement. The political angle to this is even more shocking. The news today a said " All the BJP ruled states have imposed national song to be sung in all schools, and the Congress ruled states have made it voluntary".I am shocked in statements : imposed? Do you need to impose the national song? What are they trying to do? Excuse me sir, you cant force patriotism on any individual. If you have a oneness to the country, you wouldnt have a problem singing the song. Also the voluntary thing, the statement itself means the party is doing what it always does, play on caste politics. I recon the people who refuse to sing the national song have a sense of satisfaction that, here there is a political party which needs our votebank and so will listen to us, So we can do whatever the F### we want. Funny enough, they getaway with it. Spiteful.My take on this is that India, is for Indians only: If u dont want to live with that, get the f### out. Trust me, we will be glad to get rid of you.I dont think I will ever vote again for any party again. Hope we see a party which sees above the caste religious bull crap.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Update at last!!!

I must admit, I have been guilty of being lazy. Just cant believe, it was January since I blogged last.Lots of things have happened since then. I moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow. In the end of April, moved from Glasgow back to Bangalore. I have to admit, I am very disoriented. I have my return ticket booked on the June 13th. I think I have had my share of the UK, infact saturated. I dont think I am going back!!!I am now, working part time for my dad's company www.deeopl.com. I dont think I have mentioned about this earlier. It will be 10 years old this year. The market had been mainly meant for Indian defence. LCA's (Tejas) Up front control panel was designed here. It is the green display with red buttons.The more important project is the Red Light violation system. The system consists of a camera and a licence plate recognition system. It is capable as the name suggests, captures the vehicle's licence plate automatically prints the ticket and is mailed to the address which the vehicle is registered to. Last week, we had the field trials of this near the junction of the Mysore Road signal. In two hours, the system had recorded a whooping 400+ defaulters. But the funniest thing was, this constable who was standing across the road, was taking money from these defaulters saying that they were violating traffic rules, pointing at the camera. This cop must have made 5K easily that day! Corruption at its best, I wonder when we can actually stem this. I dont know, how this will help the infrastructure problem but, should be helpful in controlling some randomness in bangalore traffic which I say is a perfect example of brownian movement.

I am starting in Wipro tommorow, so I guess my return to UK is definitely out of the window. I am looking forward to my stint in this sweat shop. Going to be some good experience. Other thing I am so looking forward is for DJ.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Haiku time.

Monday, December 26, 2005

Movie marathon..

My little eye!!! This is a scary movie. Wait, scary is an understatement. It is probably the scariest movie I have ever seen. No, it is not what you are thinking about. No ghosts, no jumpy sound effects. This movie has a reality show feel to it, voyeuristic having hundreds of cameras in a house, absolutely in the middle of nowhere. The live feed is broadcast over the interent for everyone to see. (well thats what the advertisement said). Five people selected to spend 6 months in this place. If none of the 5 people leave at the end of this, each one gets paid million dollars. The movie just shows the last one week of their stay. Things you never expect happens. They see their deepest secrets, coming into haunt them just in the last one week. It all builds up nicely and the last thirty minutes of the film and is the scariest thing I've seen in a while. I was on the edge of my seat, knuckles and all. They get to find out that they are just some pawns used in a reality Snuff movie where people are placing bets online to see which one of the five will walk out alive!!! If you like weird movies, this is a must watch.

Flatliners was one more movie is saw, in the last two days. But I wouldnt recommend it. Surprising that Julia Roberts acted in the movie.

The best movie I saw, was even though for the second time was American history x. Neo - Nazisim portrayed in the best way possible. Edward Norton, a neo-nazi protege kills two black men in the cold blooded murder ever seen on TV.This picture is the when he kills him, but I really dont want to distrub people by telling how he actually kills the black man. The movie starts off, in a uncharactersitic fashion of a school kid, doing a review of Mein Kempf for the a paper on civil rights movement, which is what, I must say caught my attention. The movie moves on to his brother, Edward norton who was an influence to the kid. It is about how Edward norton comes about and understanding that all he believed in hogwash. Interesting twist towards the end, which again, you wouldnt expect."Hate is baggage, anger did no good for anybody in any point of time."

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

And boldy go where...

staying here and going no where, the catch line of Space Cadets. I dont think any reality show comes even close to this one and the end results they are trying to achieve. 10 morons, few guys with fake Russian accents, few Star Trek jargons, a simulator and a huge projector and the end result: they become laughing stock of the world( or are they really??).I hardly watch any TV at all, but have advertently been watching this show. The select 10, were taken to Russian training center ( actually Ipswich in UK) and trained by a Russian ex-KGB agent to endure the travel to space. Further more a famous astronomer teaches them the science of the skies, and that they wouldnt experience zero G as they had three artifical gravity generators aboard the space craft.( now isnt that nice, star trek ages definitely). The morons bought that.. an exam and their graduation. The solemn Russian graduation prayer apparently happened to be a a preparation of some weird kind of toad soup, that required the cadets to stand up with a salute.Four of the 10 were chosen and they boarded the "space ship" the earth orbiter -1, and are currently in space.. erm a hangar with a huge projector which projects the curvature of the earth.I have two takes on this, one it is that the thing is extermely hilarious, secondly I think it is ethically wrong. The cadets in space, were overwhelmed to see the "earth" from the orbit as they believe they are. Well come on, who wouldnt be. But I recon they deserve what they get for 15 mins of fame. Ignorant harlequins in the making. So does this make me shallow?There is one more thing which has crossed my mind, are they all actors acting this out? Making this the Utlimate reality TV ever, with people being the real fools :). Let us see how this unfolds... :)

Monday, December 12, 2005

chappargalu saar chappargalu..

Bangalore to be renamed bengalooru??? barf!!! that will be the day, those sons of b****s need some one to gun them down. Also, why bengalooru, why not bendakalooru which was the original name...disgusting I say!!

Music to h-ears??

Is it a rhetorical question, if i may ask, why is good music hard to find? It has been so difficult for me to find good, new music. All the bands that come up now, are either one hit wonders (if I can may hyperbolize) or wannabes, in other words PISH. Or is it just the case, that good musicians die young? (Jeff buckley :( ).The past one year, I have tried listening to different genres including the ones which just wont even agree with with me. I have also had a kannada movie song trip ( uppi basically and the Hodi maga song) thanks(or no thanks) to Sunu and Kelis thanks to Kate and Deej(psst .. just kidding n yea, it was the milkshake song I ended up killing myself with)Finally ended up listening, exploring the 50, 60s and what it had to offer( thanks to acura 50, 60s radio on the Itunes). The Troggs, Status quo, Yardbirds, Kinks, Hermans hermits, Honeycombs, Gilbert-O-sullivan, The seekers... I could go on. Few people out there, may say, that they are no better than one hit wonders like the present day bands. I beg to differ, thanks to the Beatle mania during the 60s. The beatles were good in their own right, but am afraid they deprived the world of good music. I would really like to call them the music killers but wouldnt go there.One good genre I really liked in the music of yesteryear, was surf music to the likes of Ventures and Dick Dale. Dale's influence was vast, helping ignite surf music and contributing several of the genre's most enduring classics like lets go tripping ( the beach boys).I had blogged about Blue grass earlier. So, I wouldnt go into that one now.

Jack Johnson, this dude rocks. He has gone from being a film maker, song-writer to singer his touch on the guitar is unique, the muting is unbelievable almost as good as Dave matthews. For people who havent had the chance to listen to Jack, what are you waiting for, go buy the album in between dreams or download madi.Yea, if you guys know about any good stuff, please let me know, would I be ever grateful to you. Zu(this dude, knows the best music always) and Deej send me good music right now. :D.Long live the lizard king.. amen.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Tagged I am..

I have been tagged by Deej. In her words, some useless trivia about me.1. I hate the UK but spent nearly 3 years in this place.2. I hate pseud, superficial people, and make it a point to let them know, directly, and get into trouble.3. Have a unique tendency to complicate the simplest of things.4. I love dancing, especially the latin american dances.5. I cant live without my P910i. None of the other phones agree with me.6. Arguements, makes me understand myself better.7. I would never do anything without consulting Pooh and Apz. They are the two people who are always there for me.8. I can be very intense, u can see that from my blogs.9. I miss my guitar, since I dont have one anymore. bah!!10. Dont judge me by this one, I am a star trek aficionado. Spock being my favourite character11. I like watching wierd movies that makes absolutely no sense.12. I am very pessimistic. I dont think I can think 8 more things about me.13. Cooking calms me. I dont think I will ever stop cooking completely.14. I tend to attract crazy women, the sane ones dont want anything to do with me.15. Get irritated very easily.16. I am very vindictive, so dont screw me over.17. Work, without orkut is almost impossible for me.18. I dont think I can ever put on weight.19. Vintage car collection is one of my life long dreams.20. sectarianism pisses me immensely.

yoohoo.. i never thought i could get through with this. I am not sure, whom to tag, but feel free to tag yourself.